A Rainy Day

Being the brave souls (Parisian souls?) that we are, we got out the umbrellas and carried on with our plan of walking around. We visited the memorial to murdered European Jews, a maze of rectangular concrete blocks of varying heights. Walking into the memorial, you quickly become disoriented in the forest of stark grey columns. We continued walking past the memorial to the famous Brandenburg Gates. We continued on, becoming wetter by the second, admiring the architecture around Pariser Platz, and in the area of Unter den Linden behind the gates.

By this point our feet (ok, my feet) were so cold and wet I could hardly feel them. We decided it was time for some indoors culture, and got on the subway to go back to Potsdamer Platz to visit the Nue National Gallerie, which houses a collection of 20th century European artists. And that’s when things started to go wrong. The Nue Gallerie is part of what is called the Kulturforum, an area consisting of three or four galleries that you can access with one ticket. Once we bought our tickets, we encountered the first problem: how to get into the gallery? We wandered around the main building before finally finding the entrance. Once we got into the gallery, we couldn’t find the paintings we were hoping to see. We were in a football field sized space housing an impressive collection of 15th century art, not exactly what we had been hoping for, and not exactly what we were in the mood for. We realize the gallery we want is in another building, and set off across the street only to discover that the permanent collection of the Nue Gallerie is closed for renovation. Ok, the guide book said there was a design exhibit back at the Kulturforum that sounded interesting, so back we go, only to discover that due to the delicate nature of the mainly pencil on paper collection, it isn’t on permanent display, and is therefore also closed.

We decided that we were clearly not destined to become cultured souls that afternoon, and settled ourselves comfortably in a brewery for lunch. Once we had warmed up, we set off for Tacheles. Tacheles is a vacant building completely covered in graffiti that has been taken over by artists. It is a building that I would never have entered normally, but I guess we were feeling particularly brave that afternoon, and we walked in and made it up the third floor to visit the artist’s studios (luckily we weren’t the only tourists there!). It was an interesting place, and the surrounding neighbourhood was really neat. We stopped into a bar carrying 100 different kinds of beer (don’t worry, we only tried two) before going back downtown.

Our next stop was the Philharmonie, where we got tickets for that evening’s concert. The cheapest tickets were actually on the stage, right behind the orchestra, and it was really neat to have a close up view of the musicians while they were playing, as well as being able to see the conductor’s face. It was an impressive show (concert?), the highlight being an amazing violin solo. Dinner afterwards was back at another location of Lutter & Wegner, this time I had sauerbraten, and Erik black pudding with apple strudel for dessert.

It was a great weekend, and we were sorry to say goodbye to Berlin the next day.

Touring Berlin

Our second day in Berlin started off with a great breakfast. The Germans really know how to start the day properly. A buffet consisting of fresh rolls, sliced meats and cheeses, a selection of muesli, yogurts, jams, fruit got the day off to a satisfying start.

Our fist stop of the day was the Winterfeldt market, probably not the best place to be when you’re still full from breakfast, but we had a good time looking through the stalls and drooling at all the displays of cheeses, meats, and pastries.

From there we headed up to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (museum chronicling the history of the wall). It was a bit hectic, with lots of information about the many ways that people escaped from East Berlin. It went on, and on, and on, and eventually our stomachs told us that it was time to find a place for lunch.

We chose a random café just down the street, Café Persil. The waitress didn’t speak English, but helpfully gave us the English menu that listed everything except the specials. After trying to decipher some of the specials, we decided to cross our fingers and hope for the best, ordering specials #2 and 5. We were lucky, because they were great! I had spaetzle with a creamy sauce and crispy fried onions with a side salad, and Erik had fried ham chop, fried potatoes and salad. A satisfying meal, and only 20€ including beer.

We continued on foot to the Judisches Museum, a beautifully designed building housing the history of the Jewish Culture. This museum was excellent, well organized, very interactive, and very interesting. The museum contains the Holocaust Memorial tower, an unheated space, completely enclosed save for a small opening near the top that lets in a sliver of light. It was a very powerful.

After all that, we were ready for a break, and went back to the hotel to change and get organized for dinner. Our dinner reservations were at Oderquelle, a restaurant that was quite different from our previous night’s dinner. It was a cozy space, more relaxed, and perhaps more authentic. Other diners seemed to be mostly German, which is always a good sign. Erik started with lentil soup, and I had some dry and unexciting ‘Swabian Ravioli.’ Main courses included fried duck breast with gnocchi and cabbage, and roast veal chop with parsnips and roast potatoes. All of it was lovely, although both the cabbage and the veal chop had a very strong cheese on them, which was a bit odd (especially on the meat?). We finished the meal with warm apple crumble with a Calvados crème fraiche. Very tasty.



After the meal, we walked through the neighbourhood, and chose a busy café for one last drink. On the train ride home, we were entertained by all the people that were drinking (we were two of the few people in our car without bottles in our hands). We prolonged the evening by stopping again at a café across from the hotel, before settling ourselves on the couches at our hotel bar.

Berlin baby, yeah!

Erik decided that his vacation would begin the minute he had his first German beer. After many Heinekens both at the airport and on the airplane, he was finally able to relax with a delicious German beer Friday night before dinner. You can imagine his priorities, when the first thing he checked at the hotel was the bar menu.

We landed at Berlin’s Tegel airport on Friday evening, and made it easily into the centre of the city. Our Holiday Inn Express was conveniently located close to Potsdamer Platz, and was another Hotwire find—three stars, and at $55 US a night, it was practically free. We dropped of our luggage, and headed straight out to wander around and have a drink before dinner.

We were a little surprised at the snow. I guess we live in a bit of a bubble here in Paris. We had checked the weather, but neither of us were really expecting there to be snow, and ice, actually ON the ground. When the weather says that it’s going to snow here in Paris, it actually means white coloured rain, and temperatures usually above zero.

We wandered around the Gendarmenmarkt, and found an outdoor patio, complete with heaters and blankets. We settled in to enjoy the atmosphere as our appetites got ready for dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called Lutter & Wegner. A restaurant we realized later was a chain, but would never have guessed based on the atmosphere, and most importantly, the food. We were given a nice table by the window, and started the meal with their strawberry punch, an odd combination of strawberries and sparkling wine, sort of like sangria, but not as nice. After fishing the final strawberries from our glasses, our entrees arrived, apple and lentil salad with sauerbraten for me, and Berlin style potato soup for Erik. My salad was delicious, a nice combination of textures and flavours, both salty, sweet and sour. Erik’s soup was the perfect thing for a cold night, great flavour, with big chunks of sausage.

I had weiner schnitzel with warm potato and cucumber salad for my main course. The schnitzel was huge, and perfectly fried with a nice crispy crust. The salad was also quite good, and the cucumbers were a surprisingly welcome ingredient. Erik enjoyed bratwurst with horseradish mashed potatoes, definitely the star of the meal. Incredibly flavourful sausages complimented by equally delicious potatoes.

For dessert we settled on a fried cake thing, whose name I can’t remember, served with vanilla ice cream and conserved plums. We had to wait twenty minutes for it to be prepared, but it was worth the wait. It was a not too sweet, and slightly crunchy, very satisfying way to end a wonderful meal.

After dinner we wandered happily past Checkpoint Charlie on the way back to the hotel, busily planning our agenda for the following day.

Walking Home

Name that bridge! Bonus points if you can also name the two buildings in the background.

Guess Where Erik Went

Sunday Photos

This is what greeted me when I got home from the gym this morning:

This eventually became a handle bar mustache before it finally disappeared.


The seven lemons that Erik used to make limoncello. Now we have seven skinless lemons living in our fridge. Any ideas of what we could do with them?

We had Erik's colleague Hiroshi and his family over for dinner last night. Erik got a good shoulder workout playing 'Spiderman' with the two kids.